A Craving
by Fivelettered
Summary: Vampirism on the Enterprise.
1. Chapter 1

The medbay was relatively silent, only the soft beeps of machines reading the vital signs of some residents resonated in the room.

The farther back one went, however, the more likely one was to hear the strained groans of Nyota Uhura. She was Dr. McCoy's newest patient.

Uhura squirmed against her restraints, deemed necessary by the doctor himself. She probably would have left by now to do more damage. The plastic cuffs held her arms and legs to the bed, while one was put across her stomach for extra safety. Her head throbbed, she was seeing in warped, unnatural colors. The clear plastic descended into grey, and the usually blue walls of the medical bay grew black with spots of green. Everything was swirling around her, and she felt herself sinking into the bed. The cravings this disease gave her were wrecking her insides. She groaned in pain and closed her eyes, which only magnified the pain. She groaned again, whimpering and trying not to cry. It was growing difficult to hold the tears, but there wasn't anything McCoy could do for the pain. It was only part of withdraw from not having what she wanted. There was a noise next to her, of the metal rings of her curtain sliding against the metal bar. Her eyes sprung open.

"Nyota? I had to come and see you. McCoy told me what had occurred. I apologize, I should have followed you back to your room…"

"Don't apologize, Spock." Her voice was seductive, but raspy, almost to the point of hoarseness. Uhura was surprised at her voice, even though she was in searing pain. He was alarmed at the sight of her. Her blue hospital gown was haphazard from her wriggling.

Spock moved closer to her and grazed his hand over the cool, plastic restraints. His eyes questioned her own, which he could clearly see were a far lighter shade of brown than before. They were also bloodshot. Spock had been barely briefed in what really happened, but was glad that both she and Kirk were alright.

Spock held up a bag of blood, while in the other hand hung the long cord from beneath the bag.

"I brought you this. Apparently the disease is not fond of Vulcan blood, so I am the safest person to bring you these bags. Or at least, that is what Doctor McCoy told me. I am not well versed on this subject."

"Thank you", she muttered.

Spock brushed Uhura's loose hair out of her face, his eyes filled with concern. He then punctured the tube seal on the bag, which was a relatively quick action. The blood flowed out, and he placed the tube to her mouth. Uhura took the tube and drank, much to the horror of Spock. The look on her face was orgasmic, but it was simply because her pain was beginning to subside. Her arms grew goosebumps, and Spock couldn't help but find the sight somewhat arousing. He found his human side most at his disadvantage during times like these. She drained the bag completely, and her eyes flickered back open. They remained the same amber shade, but filled with wanting. Her mouth was slack, and the blood on her teeth began to marbleize.

__________

There's more coming up, just give me a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

Uhura, though communications officer, was left to investigate the wildlife with Hikaru Sulu on Medusa II. It was a recently introduced planet, uninhabited by mammals but had some reptilian life forms, none of which were very large. The plant life was plentiful, and it ebbed somewhere between forest and jungle. She was putting a hand toward a plant, which looked much like a Venus Fly Trap, when the open mouth of it bit her. It was a sharp, sudden bite, and she quickly pulled her hand away. Small dots of blood formed on her two affected fingers, and she pulled out her small first aid kit to take care of the wounds. An alcohol wipe and applications of liquid bandage fixed the punctures, but she felt odd. Her hand now felt funny, and there was an ache in it.

What seemed like an hour to Uhura was 10 minutes after she had returned. Her eyes began to hurt, and she was having trouble seeing. Things were blurring right in front of her, and she had an awful headache. Maybe she had caught a fever from the plant? Uhura decided that was unlikely. She rubbed her brows at her station, and Kirk, who was walking around, looked at her concerned.

"You okay, Uhura?"

"Mh", she began, "feeling a little under the weather."

"Well, I definitely don't want any of my crew unwell on shift", he said as he leaned on the non-display part of her console. "Do you want to take a break?"

She nodded, and Kirk moved out of her way as she walked toward the turbolift. She felt a little wobbly, and Spock looked over in her direction. His expression flashed concern, but she smiled weakly to calm him.

Her room was right around a bend, and either way would be a long walk. She had just gotten off the turbolift when a group of crew people, mainly engineers, walked past her. She could hear the heartbeats of all of them, throbbing in her ears. The sound was somewhat intoxicating to her, and she closed her eyes as they walked away from one another, letting herself relish in it as if it was the beat of a song.

As she continued to ache, her mind questioned why that had even happen. It was unusual for her to hear the heartbeats of others, even when she was sick. Did she have a virus? She dismissed that as well, she was feeling weak but viruses wouldn't heighten your senses.

She kept walking, and more people began to pass her. The security officers shifts were changing, and there was another rush of red around her. The heartbeats all ran together, some in sync, and she rushed through them. The feeling of their blood in their bodies brought a new curiosity to her. She wanted to tap their veins. She blinked hard, finally out of the crowd as people wained farther down the hall. A tall man with a shaved head passed her suddenly. He had a cut on his hand, rudely wrapped in gauze with a line of blood on it, and the sudden sight of it put a fire in her. She suddenly wanted to suck the wound, to drink the coppery taste. She stopped dead in her tracks and rubbed her temples. What was that about?

She made it back to her room, making sure to lock the door behind her. Only a command override would get through from the hall.

"What am I?" She was thinking out loud. "Some kind of vampire?" She laughed, but it hurt her. She laid on her bed and closed her eyes. She felt empty on the inside, and her body cried for blood. She could remember the few times she stuck a wound on her hand in her mouth, and the memories of the metallic taste of her blood were filling her mouth again. She thought about biting into someone's throat, like in the old movies she watched, and the rush of liquid in her mouth…

There was a sudden knock on the door.

"Lieutenant Uhura! You in here?"

"Please leave, I'm not well." That was sort of Spock-ish, but she didn't care.

"We should go to sick bay. I'll come with you? I don't want you to be miserable."

Thinking it over, she got off the bed and unlocked the door. It immediately slid open and Uhura was greeted with Kirk's patented "concerned face". She looked up at him, her lips relaxed but her eyes heavily lidded.

"Uhura…your eyes...they're a different color." Kirk looked at her, investigating her face.

Uhura looked at him as if he was the sick one.

"Alright, you are coming down to medbay with me right now. You're obviously not well", he spoke, coming into her room and looking around frantically. "What do you need to bring with you?" He got on his communicator for McCoy, personally, to come up and help him bring Uhura down. He responded back quickly, but with an obviously annoyed voice about "probably a trivial disease".

"No, no…" She wasn't even sounding like herself anymore. Her voice teetered between weak and animal. The urge drove her more, her heart racing at the sound of Kirk's own. Being so close, it drew her in.

She locked the door again and followed Kirk into her bathroom.

"You have a lot of hair stuff. You might be there for a while, do you need…"

Uhura was looking at him with her head tilted slightly. It was as if she was a lioness, and he was the zebra she was going to eat. Carefully, he set down her shampoo and quickly walked away from her, but effectively trapped himself in the bathroom. She closed the door and slowly came to him.

"Jim."

A voice not her own, almost monstrous. The fear was evident in his bright eyes as he stroked his cheek.

"Let's just go to medbay," he urged, breathing heavily. "Bones will get you fixed up and…" He was shaking, and the racing of his heart brought her to a fever pitch. Her mind screamed to bite him, and draw that life from him. To drink his blood like wine.

She put a hand into his hair and another on his shoulder, spreading open the crook of his neck, and bit into it hard. Kirk screamed, and Uhura enjoyed the sudden burst of blood into her mouth. She moaned, as if she had just been caressed, and sucked up his rapidly draining blood out of his veins. The satisfaction she was getting from this was unbelievable, far from any human thing she could experience.

The door to her quarters was being pounded on, and before she knew it, the bathroom door was quickly sliding open. She turned around slowly to find a horrified McCoy, another science officer and a nurse she hadn't met before. She felt blood leaving her lips, and she licked them with a seductive joy on her face.

She turned back to finish, Kirk's golden shirt stained across the entire shoulder with red, and she felt a puncture in her own neck. She felt dizzy, closing her eyes as she fell backwards into a deep sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Spock had just finished scanning her mind, trying to find out what had happened to infect her. There was a rush for him to get to McCoy, who was standing beside Kirk's bed. He was deep in thought, and very close to tears, a hand covering his mouth. Spock stayed at an arm's length from him, and looked down at Kirk. He was still asleep, covered in a gauze to help the regeneration of his skin and veins expedite itself. His life signs were stable, and a IV was in his arm,

"A _sanguinaria verde_ plant on the surface of the planet had bitten her," he began quietly "That is when all of the symptoms began."

"I wouldn't say nearly killing our captain is a "symptom" of anything, Commander."

McCoy was especially freaked out from the incident. Kirk is his closest friend, and he didn't want to lose him. Uhura, licking **his blood **off of her lips, was something right out of a horror film. That was the thing about space, he thought briefly, horror films were quite possible. One was never sure what they could stumble upon.

McCoy turned to him, taking his hand away from his chin, and sighed.

"But since I know the exact plant, I can give her the exact hypospray. That's one person corrected. Jim will be here for a while. If we got there any later he would have needed a transfusion or…I'm not even sure."

He turned away from the bed completely, and lightly moved Spock out of his way. Spock followed him to the medbay refrigerator, where there were some vials sitting in a rack.

"These are all of our plant virus cures. The sanguinaria family of plants has a virus on their teeth that can be transferred into blood. They were first found on Remus, but they apparently are growing on Medusa II. In humans, it attacks the brain, turning the human host's focus on drinking the blood of others, along with heighten sensory experiences. As I've said before, the virus isn't apparently fond of Vulcan or Romulan blood."

He was busy reading all of the labels on the vials as he said this, finding the correct one and pulling it out, grasping it in his hand. He picked up a hypospray and placed the vial in, walking quickly to Uhura's bed. Spock followed, passing the numerous empty beds. Stopping at Uhura's, who had fallen asleep after her dinner, he slowly moved toward the head of the bed. McCoy placed the needle to her prominent neck vein, putting the whole vial into her. She stirred slightly, but was still soundly sleeping.

"The plant she was bitten by has the longest recovery period. Looks like you'll also be down a communications officer for two days, Captain."

Spock looked at Uhura's sleeping frame as McCoy patted his shoulder and walked away, feeling as if this was his own fault. Logically, "what if" scenarios are pointless. One is unable to travel back in time. Usually. It was just an accident, but he could have sent a security officer. A pang of regret went through his stomach.

Spock sighed audibly, and sat back in his chair beside Uhura's bed. He took her hand again and squeezed it. He caught some of her sleeping emotions. Satisfaction was prominent, but there were twinges of happiness and mildly, regret and pain.


	4. Chapter 4

Uhura woke up feeling slightly less awful. The pain had died down. Someone had left her a cup of blood. _Probably McCoy_, she thought. On a whim, she decided to take a trip around medbay. Nurses were bustling about, and she managed to catch Chapel with a wave. She was her typical cheery self, helping a medical ensign with checking a woman's vitals.

Her trip was cut short by McCoy noticing what she was up to. As soon as she saw him, she waved eagerly at him. However, McCoy looked none too amused with her traveling. He walked over to Uhura quickly, and the smile faded off of her face for a calm look.

"Uhura, as your physician, I suggest you go back to bed."

"I feel a lot better. I really needed to get out of bed, though, Doctor."

McCoy's disapproving eyebrows were against her.

"I can get someone to bring down your PADD, will that be better? But really, you need to rest. You've already been out for a day and a half."

"Alright. Can I at least say hello to Kirk first? I want to see how he is."

His face remained unchanged, but he nodded.

"He's recovering well. Finally off the IV and only needed a quart or two of new blood. He's in the room at the corner."

Uhura felt a little silly being in the Starfleet medical gowns, going around the aisles and passing up other people. While the gowns were blue flannel, it was never the less odd. Finally, she got to the room. The door was open slightly, and she gently knocked upon it.

"Jim? Are you awake?"

"…Uhura?" His voice was groggy. "Come on over." There was a smile in his voice.

Cautiously, she made her way into the room. Kirk was pale, but had a blush about his cheeks. She noted he had a wound from her teeth in his neck. It seemed to pulse at her, and her organs slid down to her toes. A wave of bad feelings came over her, and she put her hands over her mouth. It didn't quite click how bad things became.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her voice near crying.

Kirk sat up in his bed, and motioned for her to come closer. Unexpectedly, he gave her a one-armed hug. She wouldn't fight it.

"It's alright. You weren't all there. Hell, it wasn't even you..."

"That doesn't excuse me in the least. I caught this somehow."

"Nyota…I can call you that for now, right?"

She nodded. A near death experience is enough for first name terms.

"You were sick, and regardless how it happened that wasn't you that attacked me. It took over your head. You came after me because I was available. I mean, I was in your _bathroom. _What's done is done, and we both made it. Okay?"

Another nod.

"I'll try and be more careful on away missions, and not brush it off if I'm sick."

"It's not your fault. Victim of circumstance, is all."

They softly smiled at each other for a brief moment.

"Go get some more rest. You'll probably be here longer than I will", Kirk quipped.

Uhura smirked, and then made her way out of the room.


End file.
